Juvenile delinquency became a popular draw for American moviegoers in the Eisenhower era as post-WWII families became more concerned about the possible degeneracy of their offspring under the stress of the threat of nuclear annihilation. Often clad in black leather and sporting the hottest hip lingo of the day, these teens in trouble tore up classrooms and households alike in such breakthrough films as Blackboard Jungle (1955) and High School Confidential (1958). By 1964 when Universal released Kitten with a Whip, the genre had been overtaken by beach movies and gothic horror movies showcasing faded starlets. To catch moviegoers' attention, the filmmakers twisted the J.D. template by adding a huge dose of wild-haired sex appeal in the form of hot property Ann-Margret and infusing the narrative with a hefty dose of modernized, Mexican-flavored film noir a la Orson Welles' Touch of Evil [1958] (whose Henry Mancini score makes a cameo appearance here). The resulting cocktail is a studio exploitation vehicle unlike any other.

Left to his own devices for the weekend, married San Diego businessman David Stratton (John Forsythe) finds his quiet weekend interrupted when wild teenager Jody (Ann-Margret) sneaks into his house at night and, clad only in a nightgown, decides to spend a night in one of his vacant beds. David interrupts her and at first falls for her sob story about being a traumatized kid on the run, but as he attempts to give her some help, Jody proves to be far more unstable than he suspected. Threatening cries of rape, she quickly browbeats David into submission as he begins to wonder whether his senatorial aspirations might be in jeopardy. Things get even worse when a newscast reveals Jody's true origins, and then three of her cohorts – Ron (Peter Brown), Midge (Diane Sayer), and Buck (Skip Ward) – crash the party for a night David will never forget.

Swedish-born star Ann-Margret had only been acting in feature films for three years when she made Kitten with a Whip but had already established herself as the most vivacious entertainer of her generation, having made a splash in George Sidney's stylish Bye Bye Birdie (1963) after promising turns in Frank Capra's Pocketful of Miracles (1961) and a wildly uneven remake of State Fair (1962). Aided by multi-talented veterans like George Burns, Danny Thomas, and Dean Martin, she became a media sensation instantly with the release of five albums and instant pop culture immortality as "Ann-Margrock" on The Flintstones. 1964 saw the release of two more Ann-Margret films, The Pleasure Seekers and her electric turn in Viva Las Vegas, which continued to confirm her status as a sex symbol backed up by substantial talent.

However, Kitten sharply diverges from its star's other films to that time by trading out her signature red-haired mane for a bleach-blonde coiffure (perhaps because this was her first black-and-white feature), casting her as a semi-villain, and giving her no musical numbers whatsoever. In turn, Ann-Margret turned up the dramatics with a fiery performance that veers from touching sincerity to wild-eyed camp; her "I'll be a celebrity!" monologue justifiably became a centerpiece of a popular video club mix created for her by underground video sensation Dan-o-Rama. More unexpectedly, this also became the only Ann-Margret film to be turned into an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, a treatment that, as with other rewarding films like Danger: Diabolik (1968) and Devil Doll (1964), led to a steep drop in its critical reputation (not to mention IMDB user ratings).

Though Ann-Margret easily dominates the entire film, her co-stars are considerably more accomplished than usual for an exploitative B-movie. John Forsythe was established as a likeable everyman personality thanks to steady work in film and TV since the late 1940s (including Alfred Hitchcock's The Trouble with Harry [1955]), most pointedly having just finished a five-year run as the star of the then-popular series Bachelor Father, of which this film almost seems a cunning satire. Of course, he went on to immortality both as the star of the definitive '80s glamour nighttime soap, Dynasty, and one of the world's most recognizable disembodied voices on Charlie's Angels. His equally "square" neighbors are played by veteran performers Patricia Barry (a familiar face best remembered for The Beast with Five Fingers (1946) and numerous episodes of the seminal horror series Thriller including "A Wig for Miss Devore") and Richard Anderson, fondly remembered as TV's Oscar Goldman from The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman.

Of the other delinquents, hep-cat ringleader Peter Brown had the most notable career both before and after, having already starred in the hit western series Lawman (which ran from 1958 to 1962) with another western show, Laredo, to follow in 1965. Oddly enough, in 1963 he also appeared in an episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, "Forecast: Low Clouds and Coastal Fog," whose home invasion nocturnal nightmare feels like a dry run for this particular film. Never out of work and still busy, Brown also obtained permanent cult status as the male villain in 1974's Foxy Brown which climaxes with him suffering a fate never forgotten by any male viewers.

Much of the cult appeal of Kitten with a Whip can be attributed to the unusual approach of writer/director Douglas Heyes, a veteran TV director here making his feature film debut. Heyes' television work had been primarily distinguished by a stylistically extreme, "waking nightmare" ambience found in his groundbreaking, noir-inspired work on The Twilight Zone (particularly the episodes "Eye of the Beholder," "The Invaders," "The After Hours," and "The Howling Man") and Universal's Thriller (especially "The Hungry Glass" and an episode also pairing Kitten actors Patricia Barry and Richard Anderson, "The Purple Room"). His skillful manipulation of light and shadow coupled with unpredictable bursts of melodrama gives Kitten an off-kilter personality right from the memorable opening credits (with Ann-Margret fleeing through the darkness in her white undergarments) as her character seems to shift emotional gears every ten minutes for reasons only vaguely delineated by the script. The ambivalent approach to her character never does quite resolve itself as she swerves from misunderstood victim to heartless, scheming she-devil at least a dozen times, with the film itself seeming to embrace and recoil from her just as randomly. However, this erratic portrayal works best when the entire film is taken as a darkly comic, illogical assault on its straitlaced protagonist who represents a bourgeoisie under attack for the simple crime of existing.

Producer: Harry Keller
Director: Douglas Heyes
Screenplay: Douglas Heyes; Wade Miller (novel)
Cinematography: Joseph Biroc
Art Direction: Malcolm Brown, Alexander Golitzen
Music: Joseph Gershenson
Film Editing: Russell F. Schoengarth
Cast: Ann-Margret (Jody Dvorak), John Forsythe (David Stratton), Peter Brown (Ron), Patricia Barry (Vera), Richard Anderson (Grant), James Ward (Buck Vogel), Diane Sayer (Midge), Ann Doran (Mavis Varden), Patrick Whyte (Phillip Varden), Audrey Dalton (Virginia Stratton), Leo Gordon (Sgt. Enders), Patricia Tiara (Striptease Dancer), Nora Marlowe (Clara), Frances Robinson (Martha).
BW-82m.

by Nathaniel Thompson